Have we seen the last of Marco Rubio? The mystery continues.

By Rob Janicki

This one is for all the Marco Rubio fans who were devastated in his presidential primary loss.

After dropping out of the presidential primary race, which saw Marco faltering badly and reducing himself to the low level of Donald Trump, Marco Rubio came out with the standard phrase of a defeated politician, 'I'm going to seek other career opportunities outside of government.'  That's standard boiler plate for a politician seeking to lick the wounds of political battle and a dismal loss. 

That statement from Rubio opened the door for GOP Florida Congressman, David Jolly to announce he would run for Rubio's announced open seat on November 8th.  Rubio's hand picked choice was supposed to be for Florida Lieutenant Governor, Carlos Lopez-Cantera, his friend and favored replacement.

However, Marco never endorsed Lopez-Cantera and the campaign never got off the ground and it looked like Jolly would be the GOP candidate to fill Rubio's seat, or at least make a serious run for it.

However, in politics, nothing is ever final until it's final, no matter what anyone might say.

Now comes the intrigue about Marco Rubio's current intentions and here are two significant clues.

David Jolly has withdrawn in his attempt to seek Rubio's seat, which leaves Rubio the opportunity to reconsider whether leaving the United States Senate would be in his best political career interest.  Leaving a position of power, influence and visibility does little to nothing to improve one's future political fortunes. 

Second and very important, Marco Rubio has until June 24, 2016, to file papers indicating his intention to run for re-election to his Senate seat.

 

So, in a matter of days it will become apparent one way or the other whether Marco Rubio will run for re-election and hopefully maintain his solid conservative performance in that august body, which would possibly position him for better things to come in his future political career..

Dems appallingly use the terror of Orlando to push for more gun control.

By Rob Janicki

On Wednesday, the Democratic Caucus in the Senate stood up and staged a filibuster to prevent the regular order of business to proceed.  They staged this filibuster in an attempt to shame the GOP Senate majority to enact further gun laws to control who may purchase a firearm.  The problem is that these sanctimonious Democrat Senators who did speak out, either lied repeatedly on the points they made or were monumentally ignorant of the gun laws on the books that already cover the "loopholes" that Dems claim exist.


The Dem's first claim is that anyone can buy a gun over the internet, as if that person was shopping on Amazon for a light bulb.  Every gun purchased over the internet must be shipped to a gun dealer in the state of the buyer and the buyer then must pass the federal background check and comply with that state's gun laws through the dealer's record of sale (DROS) keeping with the state.  No one can buy a gun over the internet through a lawful gun dealer that does not include a federal background check, PERIOD.  To say otherwise is a blatant lie .


The next claim is that there is a gun show loophole that allows an individual to go to a gun show and buy a gun like it was bag of potatoes.  The implication being that no background check is conducted at gun shows.  Again, this is a lie.  Gun show dealers must be ATF&E licensed in order to lawfully sell guns in their state.  All their sales must go through the federal background check system along with any regulations mandated by the state in which the sale is to occur.  Federal law already makes it a serious felony for a gun dealer to sell a gun outside of the prescribed federal process.   State laws are just as stringent.  

Every gun that a gun dealer takes possession of from a gun manufacturer or gun wholesaler must eventually be accounted for with a sales transaction record and a federal background check, so there is no way a licensed dealer can sell guns out the "backdoor" so to speak.  Gun dealers are subject to unannounced audits by ATF&E agents at anytime and those ARF&E agents can shut down a dealer with questionable record keeping until an audit is completed and the gun dealer is free of any violations.


Here's a true story of an experience I had with the ATF&E.  Years ago I was called by an ATF&E agent who enquired whether I had purchased a lever action .22 rifle from a dealer that he named.  I was not familiar with the dealer's name he gave me because it was the name on the dealer's business license and not the name of the dealers business operations, a mere clerical distinction.  I did indicate that I bought the rifle in question and compared the serial number with the one the agent gave me.  It was then that I had to tell the ATF&E agent that the dealer I bought the gun from was the one and the same dealer that he was auditing.  Conversation then ended.  The point I am making is that the ATF&E does audit gun sales regularly to see that transactions meet the letter of the law and this is as it should be.


The Democrat filibuster was led by Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) who admitted that the Democrat gun control law being sought would only affect a couple of hundred potential violators on the "No Fly" list.  If that's the case, one has to wonder why the Democrats are trying to affect untold numbers of law-abiding American gun owners with draconian legislation to prevent people on the "No Fly" list from obtaining guns.  Do they not remember that the late Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy was at one time on the "No Fly" list and had to work to have his name removed from the "No Fly" list.

It is not an easy process to engage in to get one's name removed from the "No Fly" list.  It requires an attorney filing a court claim for review of the conditions and reasons that the individual was placed on the "No Fly" list.  The court then must investigate the reason why the individual in on the list and then hold a hearing explaining the court's findings, whatever that might be.  Steven Hayes of the Weekly Standard found his name on the "No Fly" list and found out just how difficult the process is to get one's name removed from the list.

What is egregious is that the "No Fly" list flies in the face of Constitutional due process, since some obscure bureaucrat can place a person's name on the "No Fly" list with no advance notice or right to contest such action before it goes into effect.  It is only after the fact that a person can contest the "No Fly" ruling through a legal procedure.  In other words, a person is guilty until such time as they can prove their innocence, in order to be removed from the "No Fly" list.  This flies in the face of Constitutional law, yet Democrats have no problem with condemning people without due process and denying these people their 2nd Amendment rights to obtain and own a gun.

The Senate would be better off if it provided more people power in the form of more FBI agents to execute current, comprehensive and  complete background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System  (NICS).  This would go a lot further in preventing terrorists and other criminal types from obtaining guns illegally.

Instead, Democrats want to demonize law abiding Americans with slanderous lies about what they characterize as a false necessity for owning a military style assault rifle for hunting or recreational shooting with high capacity magazines.  BTW, Democrats need to learn the difference between magazines and clips.  They are not the same thing.  A magazine is inserted in a semi-automatic rifle or pistol and remains in the gun until empty and removed.  A clip is a simple metal strip that holds cartridges until the clip is used to insert the cartridges into the ammunition well of the rifle and then removed.  

To illustrate how ignorant many Democrats are about guns, earlier in the week Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) declared in a news interview that AR-15 rifles had a rate of fire of 700 rounds per minute.  An ignorant and false statement since the AR-15 is a semi automatic rifle with an effective rate of fire determined by how quickly a shooter can pull the trigger.  Do the math and the actual effective rate of fire for an AR-15 is a small fraction of what Grayson claimed. 

It's all these misstatements of facts that make it obvious that Democrats will lie to enhance their anti-gun argument for greater gun controls to plug the fictional loopholes they imagine.  How about if the federal government enforces the gun control laws already on the books and increase penalties on those who acquire and use guns illegally?

The latest indication that the Trump train is off the rails.

By Rob Janicki

Donald Trump seemingly continues to derail his own campaign train with his latest diatribe against a sitting federal judge, who is sitting on the case against Trump and the charges of fraud over Trump University.  Forget about the issues and all the other trivia associated with the upcoming trial.  The trial is personal to Donald Trump and has nothing to do with his bid for the GOP presidential nomination and the inevitable match up with Hillary Clinton, the most corrupt woman in American political history.  Trump should have never brought up the subject, since it smacks of racism to demand a judge be recused from a case simply because of his ethnic heritage, without one shred of evidence pointing to judicial bias by the judge

Trump has publicly called the judge out as being biased against Trump because the judge has an Hispanic surname and is of Mexican heritage, although he, the judge, was born in Indiana.  It was the judge's  parents who were immigrants to the United States from Mexico, but somehow Trump has called for the judge's recusal from the Trump U. case for some imagined bias on the judge's part.  It's interesting to note that none of Trump's lawyers have called for the judge to recuse himself from the case.

As has been noted before, when someone crosses Trump, there will be retribution to pay and judge Gonzalo Curiel is the latest victim to receive Trump's wrath.  When Trump feels he has been wronged he will seek, by any means, to destroy the object of his enmity.  Judge Curiel is no different.  Sadly, Trump will continue to beat this drum of bias falsely based upon the race/ethnicity of Judge Curiel.

Judge Curiel

Trump has placed many of his political supporters in a very precarious position of having to deny Trump's charge of racial bias, while denying that Trump is a racist in a presidential campaign that will need all the Hispanic American votes possible in order to win the presidential election this November 8th.

Trump's behavior is not a one off aberration.  Since Trump entered the GOP circus marathon, he has managed to alienate just about every voting demographic group possible, from Hispanics to Muslims to women to politicians he will have to rely upon for their political support, if he expects to win the presidency.

Perhaps Trump's phenomenal campaign style will be able to sustain such hateful vitriol with all the accompanying negative consequences from denigrating Judge Curiel.  I'm beginning to wonder if that is a possibility, which then raises the question of what kind of people actually support Trump and his highly questionable judgment and temperament to be president.

I no longer expect Donald Trump to ever demonstrate presidential temperament and judgment.  I fully believe that Trump's cognitive and personality disorders are too firmly engrained within his narcissist personality to be able to change.  What we see in Trump is the real person, a liar and amoral individual, not exactly engaging attributes for someone seeking to become the president of the most powerful country in the world.

Donald Trump is what he is and he will not change.

By Rob Janicki

It's been suggested to Donald Trump, by many professional political types, that he become more presidential, since he is now the presumptive GOP presidential nominee with only a perfunctory vote to be held by GOP delegates at the July GOP presidential nominating convention to make his nomination a political and legal formality and fact.

However ...

Don't expect Donald Trump to change his behaviors one iota from what he has exhibited to date.  Trump's personality won't permit it and furthermore Trump at his core sees no reason to change, since he has been successful beyond his wildest dreams in this 2016 GOP presidential primary season beginning back in mid 2015.  Donald Trump cannot change his personality anymore than a tiger can change its stripes or a leopard its spots.  It's now permanently built into Trump's personality and psyche as if it was hard wired from birth.

I honestly believe that Trump never believed that he would accomplish what he has at this point in time.  I really believe that this was Trump's effort to remain a relevant player in his social circle and to support his oversized ego in his later years.  Trump is, after all, 69 years old and will turn 70 on June 14.  I am certain that Trump realized early on that if he was going to make a splash of any kind in politics, that this would have to be the time.

The premise of my commentary is that Trump will not change his habits, which have served him so very well throughout his successful business career.  Trump primarily operates from, among things, gut instinct at the moment he is confronted with a challenge.  He has been right far more times than he has been wrong with this internalized emotional decision making process.  Trump's decisions are less analytical and more emotional responses to circumstances that confront him.  Trump has always said he was a counter puncher, rather than someone who was particularly proactive.   It's the Trump thing to do and what Donald Trump knows best.  Trump's decision making process simply will not change, nor will his style of campaigning.

Trump will continue to be on the attack throughout the election process with absolutely no change in his style or temperament.  Trump's narcissism simply will not permit him to adapt and change from what he really believes is an almost messianic driven process of leadership.  People have asked what the difference is between God and Trump and the simple answer is that God doesn't believe he's Donald Trump.  Groan!  Meanwhile, Trump has been eminently successful  with his reactionary response when challenged.

I now believe that Donald Trump will win the presidency despite all the shortcomings of his personality.  What shakes me to my very core is that Trump will assume the presidency of the most powerful country on earth with the exact same set of behaviors he has exhibited throughout the campaign and the post election victory carrying over to his swearing in on January 20, 2017.

Upon assuming the swearing in as President of the United States, Donald Trump will exercise the presidency with all the very same behaviors he has exhibited throughout his adult life.  There is absolutely no reason to believe he will do otherwise, based upon his entire adult life experiences and resulting behaviors.

The world is unprepared for Donald Trump, just like the American political system was unprepared for someone like Donald Trump.  How the leaders of the world will react to Trump is the great unknown and that will become even more troubling with the passage of time and Trump's unique behaviors as he addresses issues of great importance to the rest of the world and its leaders, both allies and enemies

Trump has demonstrated, that when confronted by an opponent, he will do anything to destroy his opponent.  How that mindset will play out on the world stage has to be troubling to friends and foes alike and will only become more troubling as Trump reveals that he will not or cannot change.

Why Donald Trump will never reveal his income tax returns

By Rob Janicki

I find it amusing that anyone would ever believe that Donald Trump will reveal his personal income tax returns at any point in time.  Since first questioned about his personal tax returns, Trump has made more pirouettes on the issue than a ballerina in a Swan Lake ballet performance.  

Donald Trump, with a straight face, can lie and his supporters will accept the lie with equanimity and explain that it's just "Trump being Trump", all the while telling everyone that Trump "tells it like it is".  That's pure nonsense.  Donald Trump has set the ground rules for his lying during the GOP campaign.   When he is caught lying, Trump merely lies again when he claims he never made the original statement that has been proven to be an outright lie.  Again, that's just "Trump being Trump."  That's just what narcissists with no moral or ethical scruples do.  Obama does it everyday.  

Moving on.  

The latest information from Donald Trump is that he will not release his personal income tax returns before the November 8th election because he is under an IRS audit for an unsaid set of years and on the advice of counsel will not be releasing any returns until the current audit is completed.  You can bank on Trump's promise not to release any of his tax returns, so let's look at the two possibilities after November 8th. 

If Trump loses the presidential election, the issue of revealing his personal income tax returns becomes moot.  End of story.

If Trump wins the presidential election, be assured that he will thumb his nose to the public and will tell the public to take a flying fandango at ever seeing his personal income tax returns.  That's Donald Trump being Donald Trump.  If Trump were to win the seat of power in American government there simply is no way that anyone can compel Trump to reveal his personal income tax returns and Donald knows it.  Score that as a Trump victory with a resounding loss to political transparency  

Up to now Trump, to his credit, has managed to completely control the GOP primary campaign telling the GOP whether he will or will not support the ultimate GOP presidential candidate.  More importantly, Trump has completely managed to singlehandedly throw the entire GOP establishment off balance by claiming the entire GOP primary process is rigged and corrupt, even though he has essentially led the entire GOP primary process from the very beginning.  Some people would say Trump has chutzpah, while other would say he has a lot of nerve to bite the hand that is about to hand him the GOP presidential nomination. 

Let's be clear about something that Donald Trump completely understands.  Presidential candidates or presidents are under no legal obligation whatsoever to reveal their personal income tax returns.  That said, presidential candidates since 1976 have provided their personal income tax returns before the presidential election.  Trump, more than likely, will be the exception to this pattern of transparency, a rare moment in politics.

In conclusion, a reasonable person has to ask why would Donald Trump reveal his tax returns anywhere close to the general election?  There is little or no upside and the downside could easily be a disaster for Trump.  In the meantime, expect Trump spokespeople to stonewall this issue with obfuscations and misdirections.  That's just what the Trump campaign does when questions become too pithy and pointed.

The triumph of Trump over reason, logic and decency.

By Rob Janicki

We seem to have arrived at that point of degeneration with what now appears to be the Trump cult capturing the GOP presidential nomination with their victory in Indiana followed by Ted Cruz's announced suspension of his campaign.  I suspect, however, that John Kasich still has a plan to build a pathway to victory at the GOP convention in Cleveland in July.  Good luck with that plan John, now please just go away forever.  You have handed Trump the nomination with your insane plan to remain in the GOP nomination process. 

I call the Trump phenomenon a cult because it so closely resembles a cult and thus may rationally be viewed as cult.  The proof I offer:  If it looks like a cult, sounds like a cult and responds like a cult, I'm pretty sure it's a cult.

Here are some reasons offered by The Guardian that lend credence to the thought that the Trump phenomenon may well be a cult or something closely akin to a cult.

Some groups may not fit the definition of a cult, but may pose potential risks for participants. Here are 10 warning signs of a potentially unsafe group or leader.

• Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.

• 

 No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.

• 

No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget or expenses, such as an independently audited financial statement.

• 

Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.

• There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.

• 

Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.

• 

There are records, books, news articles, or broadcast reports that document the abuses of the group/leader.

• 

Followers feel they can never be "good enough".

• 

The group/leader is always right.

• 

The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

Now, each and every example may not apply directly to the Trump phenomenon, but they should give people reason to pause and think about how the Trump campaign methodology and tactics purposely aim to destroy his opponents.  This is no accident.  This direction comes directly from Donald Trump

In my opinion Donald Trump is a very real danger to an open and free American society as he divides groups of people by dehumanizing them, such as Mexicans and Muslims that he has slandered with demeaning epithets.  Trump employs the same tactics as the Democrats by dividing, separating and playing off groups against each other.  All one has to do is look to how Trump campaigned against his Republican opponents.  Trump displayed a 'take no prisoners' approach to his GOP political opponents, much like he described killing the families of terrorists in retribution for their terrorism association.

Trump has publicly said he would restrict rights on free speech.  He said this in the context of his suing media outlets for things that they have said about him, which have displeased him.  The First Amendment is the cornerstone to a free America.  The right to criticize government and politicians is virtually sacrosanct in our republic.  No one, individual or media outlet, should have to operate in fear of saying or publishing anything that may displease someone or some institution in the public light and with the power to exercise censorship through powerful retribution masked as the law.  

Trump has clearly demonstrated that he is a demagogue.  He has mercilessly attacked opponents with outright lies and obfuscations.  He will go to any length to destroy an opponent rather than merely defeat an opponent through facts and the power of logical argumentation.  Trump possesses all the characteristics of the classical authoritarian autocrat.  We have seen similar leaders in many of the most notorious socialist nations of the 20th century.

In Trump's own words when speaking to a rally of his supporters and when confronted with a protester, Trump said, “You know what they used to do to guys like that in a place like this? He’d go out in a stretcher.” He added, “I’d like to punch him in the face.” These comments have become typical for Donald Trump when confronted with protesters opposing his candidacy or specific actions he supports and which have become mainstays in his populist rhetoric.  It becomes problematical for any political candidate to succeed, who adversely reacts to any opposition or violence so blatantly, inappropriately and with the implied threat of open and hostile actions to suppress opposition.

Finally, Trump has clearly voiced his admiration for Vladimir Putin as a strong leader.  Over the years Trump has also voiced his admiration for numerous American liberals, not the least of which is Hillary Clinton, his most likely opponent in the November general election.  Trump's political donations have overwhelmingly been to liberals. Trump's glowing words of admiration for strong authoritarian leaders should be a clue that Trump likes the idea of being a strong autocrat in his own right.  What is most troubling to me is that Trump does not seem to possess a political philosophy.  He certainly is not a political conservative.  Without ideological principles, Trump could be and most likely will be all over the board.

One of the most prominent characteristics that Trump possesses is his need to micro-manage all things before him.  We've seen Jimmy Carter micro-manage the economy in the 1970's and that was a disaster.

In conclusion, Donald Trump has not demonstrated the temperament, judgement or the broad leadership and managerial ability to run the largest organization in the world.  Trump would have to relinquish much of the daily management to others.  I'm not certain that Trump can do this, based upon his long career in business, which he has controlled and micro-managed with an iron hand.

Has Trump won another pyrrhic battle, only to ultimately lose the war?

By Rob Janicki

Donald Trump, by all accounts, has won the New York GOP primary.  Let's put that in perspective for a moment.  The problem is that Hillary and Bernie individually garnered more votes in the New York Democratic primary than did Donald Trump in the Republican primary.  In the general election New York is a given for the Democratic candidate.

The GOP presidential campaign reminds me of the Civil War where the CSA won more battles than did the Union, but, in the end, the CSA lost the war to a disparate Union that came together to defeat the CSA.

Donald Trump has tried to create a political party primary in his mind's eye, but that obviates reality.  Primaries aren't about direct elections of the people and they never were.  Political parties are private organizations that create their own operating rules.

Trump wants to pander to the populist idea that the primary process is an exercise in direct democracy.  That's not, nor has it ever been, the guiding principle upon which political party primaries are conducted.

The most important principle a party follows in a primary process, be it Republican or Democratic, is to win the most important election of all the elections and that's the presidential election.  The party is concerned with winning the presidential election and not particularly nominating the most popular candidate, who only has the support of a plurality of the voters in the primary process.  

The primary process is meant to be a shakeout of candidates to see who is the most electable in the general election and, as it stands today, Donald Trump is the least electable among Ted Cruz and even John Kasich.

Donald Trump, the political amateur, bangs the drum over "fairness" and "democracy" using all kinds of other nonsense, despite the GOP rules to the contrary, and wants and expects the GOP to come to heel to his demands that the candidate with a plurality of delegate votes in the convention, should win the nomination ipso facto because he says it's only "fair".

The GOP primary process, not that much different than the Democratic primary process, is a representative process to nominate the most electable candidate for the party in the general election. It's the party regulars in every state, county, congressional district and precinct who have the pulse of the party voters and believe they know who is the most electable candidate for the party to support.  Are these people always right?  Maybe not, but in the end it is the candidate chosen by the delegates who must win the general election by promoting a campaign superior to the opposing candidate.

So, where does all this leave the Republican Party and the voters?

It's still problematical whether Donald Trump will accumulate the necessary 1237 delegate votes prior to the GOP convention in July.  Should Trump fail to win the 1237 delegate votes going into the convention, it then raises the question of how the convention will shake out.  Will it be Ted Cruz or someone else like John Kasich?  It should be remembered that Kasich has even less committed delegates than Marco Rubio, who has already dropped out.

Republican voters realize that ultimately it will come down to a delegate vote between Trump and Cruz.  In that scenario the political pros see a Cruz victory despite some party animosity toward Cruz, although such animosity is far less than that shown toward Trump.

The least likely scenario for the GOP convention would be some "White Knight" trotted out by the RNC to "save the day".  The RNC isn't stupid and that scenario will never play out.  The RNC is more likely to get behind Cruz, albeit reluctantly, who the RNC believes it can live with in the end and win the general election on November 8th.

The GOP will, in the end, move to support Ted Cruz after a first or second ballot.  In the end the nomination will go to the candidate who has played the primary process by the existing rules with the greatest political skill in the 50 states and other remaining U.S. territories and that candidate would be Ted Cruz.

Now all we can do is wait out the process to see which scenario comes to fruition.

Revisiting Cloward Piven and the Strategy of a Manufactured Crisis

This post was originally published in June 2014; however, the thoughts expressed, especially the lesson on the Cloward Piven strategy, are still relevant in today's political climate. Enjoy!

by Rob Janicki

Are we seeing the Cloward Piven strategy of a manufactured crisis at our southern border? I believe the answer to that question is a resounding, "Yes!".

What is the Cloward Piven strategy?  It arose out of the 1960's liberal activism of the anti-Vietnam War movement, which eventually drove President Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) from seeking re-election and lead to the presidential election of Republican Richard Nixon.

The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a national system of "a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty." 

Are we seeing the implementation of the Cloward Piven strategy at our border with Mexico? It would seem to be an orchestrated effort to use children, teenagers and young adults streaming up from Central America and South America through Mexico to literally flood our border states and the Border Patrol with tens of thousands of illegal alien entries, thus overwhelming both local, state and federal agencies and services to deal with this tsunami of young illegal immigrants streaming into the U.S. in absolutely unprecedented numbers never before seen in American history.   

Reports coming from Central and South America indicate that a mass information release is being made to encourage illegal immigration into the U.S. with the idea that these illegal immigrants were being well taken care of and that social services were available for those entering the U.S.  And those are just the illegal immigrants that are being picked up for processing and return to their home country.  The problem is that these illegal immigrants cannot simply be dumped back across the border in Mexico since the vast majority of these illegal immigrants are not Mexicans and Mexico will not take any responsibility for their return to their country of origin.  The system is being overloaded and it's being done in an orchestrated manner. 

President Obama and his henchman, Attorney General, Eric Holder, have done their very best to ignore enforcement of existing immigration laws, while claiming that they have actually increased apprehension of illegal immigrants.  All of the Obama obfuscation over this latest phenomena is part of the implementation of the Cloward Piven plan to create absolute chaos in our social services and immigration services. The problem is that the statistics that the Obama administration uses to bolster their argument of increased border enforcement laws is a pure fabrication achieved by manipulating the definitions of illegal immigrants caught and returned to the border.  

The Obama administration has used a different definition and statistical analysis of illegal immigration into the U.S. than did the Bush administration.  Changing the data formula to compute illegal immigration has produced false outcomes and the Obama administration knew what they were doing when they made the change in data collection, analysis and publication. 

Has Ted Cruz mastered the intricacies of the GOP primary process?

By Rob Janicki

It would appear so, but don't be mislead into thinking it was just a lucky break for Cruz.  Cruz began his assault on the GOP presidential nomination a year before he announced his candidacy.  While most of the other 16 original GOP presidential aspirants were traditionally about fundraising to finance their presidential ambitions, 

Ted Cruz, the political alchemist, was also creating a relatively unheard of means of determining the most probable demographic groups to focus on.   Not only did Cruz use the almost unheard of power of computer analytics of demographic groups, he also installed the most extensive grassroots political team in the 50 plus primaries and caucuses in the United States and its territorial holdings.

So what has made Cruz's campaign continue to grow as Trump's campaign has stalled in Wisconsin and Kasich's campaign simply picks up the crumbs from the Big Boy's table?  In other words, what separates Cruz's campaign from all the others?  The answer, in a phrase, is found in demographic analytics, rather than merely reading the tea leaves of polling.

The Cruz campaign has strategically delved into the voter demographics of every congressional district in America and its territories.  They found that every demographic set and sub set could be counted on to produce a quantifiable primary outcome.  They also came to believe that this analytical method was far more accurate and consistent over time than relying upon polling results to develop strategic targeting over the length of the campaign.

The Cruz campaign has managed to accurately analyze each and every demographic category and subset/s, and there are many subsets, to determine where their campaign targeting would be best utilized.  The Cruz Crew knows everyone in America who has voted or failed to vote in a Republican election going back decades.  They know how those votes were cast and this critical data can be found in their demographic analytical programs.  They know more about every voter's propensity on every issue than can be imagined.   

The Cruz campaign techies learned specifically which people, young/old, male/female, married/single, education level, region, state, county and congressional district, etc. that were almost certainly leaning in voting for Cruz.  With this foreknowledge of those voters most likely to vote for Cruz, the Cruz team could literally focus in like a laser on the specific registered voter roles to reach out to these targeted people at the grass roots level.  The Cruz team has managed to construct computer algorithms to take their campaign from the macro level to the micro level with greater accuracy and outcomes than any of the other campaigns.

Right now, Ted Cruz's campaign is playing in a league of its own, while the Trump and Kasich campaigns plod along with old school polling style analytics.  For those who have sold Ted Cruz short, they should have looked to his super sharp legal intellect to understand that he is a step ahead of his competition.  In the end, Cruz is now more likely than not, to win the nomination in a contested convention vote as Cruz also understands the rules and the make up of the primary delegates in every state and territorial delegation.  Trust me when I say that the Cruz Crew has a dossier on each and every delegate and alternate that will attend the July GOP Convention to cast a vote on the convention floor and will use that information to contact each and every delegate to make the sale that Ted's the only man to face Hillary and that can defeat her on November 8.

The only question that remains to be seen is whether the Cruz Crew can successfully negotiate with delegates not locked in by individual state rules and capture those delegates as quickly as possible for votes beyond the first round, which is looking more likely to return no victorious candidate with 1237 delegate votes.  We are definitely living in interesting times.  Real conservatives can either panic or stand tall knowing that Ted Cruz is the only real conservative in the GOP race and has the best, if not the only  chance of defeating Hillary or whoever the Democrats may have to put up, if conservatives can all coalesce around Ted Cruz.  The good news is that the GOP is finally coming around to supporting Ted Cruz rather than liberal loose cannon Donald Trump.

The Fallacy of the Minimum Wage

Editor Note:  Our own Rob Janicki wrote this primer on the minimum wage back in January 2012. We originally published it as a four part series at a blog we wrote for a long time ago in a far off galaxy.

With California becoming the first state to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour this article is even more pertinent today as it was when written.

And it's just as damn good as it was back then.

I'm probably Rob's biggest fan. He is arguably one of the best political commentators/op-ed writers on the web.

Please read this. Enjoy it. Learn from it. I did.
                                              ---------------------
The Fallacy of the Minimum Wage - Part One
By Rob Janicki
The fallacy of the minimum wage and its claimed benefits continues on with eight states raising their minimum wage rates by an amount equal to the increase in the cost of living (inflation) as measured by the Consumer Price Index.

Minimum wage rates in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington will rise between 28 and 37 cents per hour on Jan. 1, thanks to state laws requiring that minimum wage keeps pace with inflation.

Rates in these states will range from $7.64 per hour (in Colorado), to $9.04 (in Washington) in 2012... 
The first consideration to understanding the fallacy of the minimum wage is to clearly understand that the minimum wage is an artificial creation made by politicians, for the benefit of politicians for purposes of re-election.  That should make it fundamentally suspect at the outset of any analysis.  Minimum wage laws try to overcome and supplant the laws of supply and demand in a free market capitalist economy.  This is akin to trying to deny the immutable law of gravity in physics because government mandates exceptions to that law of physics.

The joke that went around early in the Obama administration had Rahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff, when asked if the administration understood the law of supply and demand, stating that they would repeal any such law. 

Moving along back to reality.

A rise in minimum wage rates is simply and without argument, an increase in the cost of doing business.  This leaves a business with three possible actions or combination of actions to take in response to increased labor costs.

The first choice a business can make is to absorb the increased cost of labor by accepting a decrease in profits.

The second alternative a business can engage in is to increase the selling price of its goods or services to accommodate the increased labor costs incurred with the rise in the minimum wage rates.

The third option a business can exercise is to reduce the size of its labor force and thus offset the increased cost of labor input in the profit and loss computation.

Let's analyze each business choice.  

If a business absorbs increased labor costs, it reduces its profits.  This has two very negative results.  First, it discourages investors from investing in the business with its reduced profit margins and rates of return on investments.  Second, it reduces the entrepreneurial risk taking to innovate, because it makes the cost of making mistakes in exploring new technologies, more expensive based upon less money available to research and development programs.  Third,it reduces the capital worth of the business, making credit more expensive to acquire.  This increased cost of credit even further reduces the business profit margin.  This becomes a vicious cycle and difficult to break. 

The next choice or hurdle to overcome has to do with attempting to pass along increased costs to the ultimate consumer.  The problem is that for each increase in cost inputs, there is a quantifiable decrease in consumers willing to pay higher prices for those products or services.  In other words, increasing prices results in losing marginal consumers who might have previously made the business comfortably profitable and able to continue R&D development and save for rainy day economic downturns.

The third issue revolves around reducing the labor force by a factor equaling the increased cost input of the higher minimum wage rate.  Let me spell that out for the terminally brain damaged liberals.  Businesses will reduce the size and thus the cost of their labor force to meet the increased cost input of the higher minimum wage rate.  Businesses will simply lay off people to maintain the same cost input and then push existing labor to match the previous productivity levels of the larger labor force.

Unfortunately there is also a fourth business consideration.  Some businesses, especially sole proprietors or small partnerships will choose to go out of business and put their capital to work more efficiently through other means of passive investment.

Part II will analyze and comment on the effects of increasing the minimum wage as an economic stimulus to the macro economy.

The fallacy of the minimum wage: Part Two
Most of what I will outline below is common sense and I apologize in advance if it seems I am stating the obvious.  If it were so obvious, liberal Democrats would not continue to push for higher minimum wage rates and I wouldn't be here explaining the myth of the minimum wage.

In Part I I outlined the options a business has in order to deal with an increase in the minimum wage, whether it is set by the federal government or state governments.  A minimum wage increase is a quantifiable unit increase in the cost of labor.  It is an important component in determining whether a business is profitable, to what extent it is profitable or whether it's a  business operation that is actually losing money and headed for bankruptcy.  

I indicated a business could absorb the increased labor cost from its profits (assuming it is profitable at the time), increase its pricing to offset the increased labor cost, reduce the labor force to compensate for the increased labor cost or as a last resort, cease business operations which would become unprofitable as a result in the rise of the minimum wage amd invest resources in some passive form of investment other than manufacturing or providing services to consumers. 

Supply and demand of labor in the market place determines the relative worth of someone's labor and productivity, not some politician's idea of what someone should be earning in wages.  Why do some people command higher wages/salaries while others do not?  It's simply based upon the skill and the level of productivity they bring to the particular job.  

Ditch diggers command a low wage rate because their productivity is very low when compared to a mechanical backhoe and one single operator, not to mention it is a dirty and back breaking job.  A baseball All-star commands a higher salary, compared to other baseball players, because he brings a very high skill level to the game that most other players cannot perform to.  A CEO that is able to lead an organization to greater profitability will receive greater compensation than another CEO who has failed to meet revenue and profit expectations.  

Businesses pay people only what they have to in order to grow revenues resulting in increased profits.  It's that simple.  So, when a business pays a CEO what would appear to be a huge salary, it's based upon the belief that the CEO has the ability to lead the business to greater profits and that is always the bottom line. 

So, what other factors make someone more valuable in the labor market than others?  Education is one element,  The longer it takes to gain an education and the commensurate skills in a field of work, the smaller the number of people are able to enter into that field when compared to the need for that skill.  Think of professionals such as doctors, dentists, lawyers, engineers, etc..  Even then, when a field has more members in it than the market demands, one of two outcomes will result.  Compensation will fall as employer choices increase in the available labor market or members of the professional group will migrate to other forms of employment that return greater compensation for the work effort put forth.

Another factor which contributes to determining a market based wage rate has to do with the element of danger inherent with some jobs.  The greater the physical danger involved in a job, the fewer people are interested in pursuing that job.  Deep earth mining is an example of a dangerous job that limits the pool of available labor compared to demand and thus it drives up the wage rate of that labor market.  There are other similar jobs that limit the potential labor pool.  Some people do not want to work at jobs that entail getting dirty, working in distasteful situations and conditions, such as collecting garbage.  Any time a job has certain conditions associated with it, there is an inherent limiting effect on the available labor market.  When the limitations are greater than the demand for that labor, the cost of that labor for employers will rise to encourage people to work for the highest available wage being offered by an employer.

By now it should be obvious that labor is a commodity of sorts like any manufactured item.  Its a service provided by a laborer to an employer.  In return the employer benefits from the utility of the worker's labor and productivity and is able to sell the resulting production of the employee, pay the employee and hopefully make a profit after all other related overhead costs are covered.  The immutable law of supply and demand is at play in any labor market just as it is in any commodity market.

In Part III I will provide research data that supports the argument that artificially imposing minimum wage rates and any increases to that artificial floor on wages, actually decreases total employment and does very little to increase overall consumer spending as a result of nominal individual wage increases. 

The fallacy of the minimum wage: Part Three
Part I, in review, was about the increase to the minimum wage of eight states.  The discussion went on to illustrate the minimum wage as an artificial increase in the cost of labor for businesses and their four options in dealing with the increased labor input cost, the last of which was to cease business operations and invest in passive enterprises not requiring anything close to intensive labor input costs.

Part II, although somewhat pedantic, illustrated how labor has its own market like a commodity and is then subject to the economic law of supply and demand.  Part II went on to illustrate the variables that went into determining how one unit of labor might be different than another through education, training, skill level, experience, etc..

Part III, to be fair,will begin with the liberal argument that the minimum wage and any increases are necessary and beneficial to both the individual and the economy.  I hope to be able to clearly illustrate two points as I deconstruct the liberal fallacy of the minimum wage as an economic stimulus and as an individual benefit.

Let's start out with some very recent data from a liberal think tank and their conclusions on what effects increases in the eight state minimum wage rates will have on individuals and the economy. 

The small boosts for 2012 are estimated to tack an extra $582 to $770 a year onto the paychecks of full-time workers, according to the National Employment Law Project, a non-profit advocacy group.

What's more, the increases could be a mini-boost for the economy. The expected rise in consumerspending as a result of the wage increases would add $366 million to the nation's gross domestic product and lead to the creation of more than 3,000 full-time jobs...

The problem with the above analysis is the assumption that the work force numbers will remain the same after the implementation of the higher minimum wage.

Here's what history has taught us with the last increase in the minimum wage rate at the national level.  It is objective and has been quantified by the facts, unlike subjective and selective forward looking prognostications by the political class or their sycophants.  

From the Wall Street Journal of October 3, 2009:

Earlier this year (2009), economist David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine, wrote on these pages that the 70-cent-an-hour increase in the minimum wage would cost some 300,000 jobs. Sure enough, the mandated increase to $7.25 took effect in July, and right on cue the August and September jobless numbers confirm the rapid disappearance of jobs for teenagers...

The September teen unemployment rate hit 25.9%, the highest rate since World War II and up from 23.8% in July. Some 330,000 teen jobs have vanished in two months. Hardest hit of all: black male teens, whose unemployment rate shot up to a catastrophic 50.4%. It was merely a terrible 39.2% in July...

As the minimum wage has risen, the gap between the overall unemployment rate and the teen rate has widened...

Congress and the Obama Administration simply ignore the economic consensus that has long linked higher minimum wages with higher unemployment. Two years ago Mr. Neumark and William Wascher, a Federal Reserve economist, reviewed more than 100 academic studies on the impact of the minimum wage. They found "overwhelming" evidence that the least skilled and the young suffer a loss of employment when the minimum wage is increased... 

Part IV will bring the fallacy of the minimum wage full circle to a complete understanding that increases in the minimum wage actually cause a net increase in unemployment resulting in more people falling into poverty than are raised out of poverty by increased wages from raising the minimum wage rate.

The Fallacy of the Minimum Wage: Part Four
Liberals would argue that an increase in the minimum wage increases economic activity and thus stimulates the macro economy.  This is a subjective wish, as it has never been objectively documented to be the case.   Will individuals stimulate the economy with a small increase in consumer spending or will businesses be able to stimulate the economy with increased investment opportunities from any savings of maintaining the current minimum wage rate?  The facts speak to the latter.  A simple principle of economics is at play here.  When the price of labor increases, the demand for labor decreases.  Labor, after all, is a commodity, just like a bushel of corn.  When the price of a commodity rises, the demand for that commodity falls as fewer people are willing or able to pay the higher price for the commodity.

Another economic principle needs to be revisited for a better understanding of wages.  Wages are money or capital as economists are want to say.  Economic principle: capital flows to its highest utility.  Translation: money moves to where it can effect the greatest result.  If a person spends X dollars, those dollars may have some multiplier effect adding utility to the capital.  However, if a business invests X dollars in capital equipment to improve or increase a manufacturing process going forward, the multiplier effect is exponentially greater because it continues on indefinitely and its utility continues to increase going forward.

If raising the minimum wage really created more wealth and stimulated the macro economy, then doubling the minimum wage should more than double the individual's wealth and really stimulate the macro economy.  The problem is that in reality employment declines to some degree as a result of increased business costs that cannot be recovered by the means identified in Part I.  Businesses, when confronted with higher labor costs and no increase in productivity, simply reduce their labor force and push the remaining labor force to make up the difference in productivity previously attained with the larger labor force.  Or, businesses, when confronted with higher labor costs they cannot absorb, look to technology to replace human labor or at least augment the resulting reduced labor force.   So, how does raising the minimum wage help the person laid off as result of businesses keeping labor costs at the present level of productivity?  Remember, wage rates are inextricably connected to productivity rates.  As productivity increases, businesses can afford to pay employees more based upon the increased productivity, which usually translates to increased profits.

The minimum wage, when all is said, done and argued, applies to entry level positions.  Entry level positions are traditionally staffed with the young and inexperienced, looking to gain the experience necessary to move upward and onward in the world of work.  If someone is 40 years old, married or living with someone with additional dependents and is working at a minimum wage job to support those dependents, there are only three explanations.  The first reason is that the person is in transition and has yet to find employment that matches his/her accumulated skills and experience.  The second reason is that the person is cognitively challenged to the extent that they cannot accept more complicated training, raising their level of productivity.  The third reason is that the person has no developed work ethic and desire to achieve beyond an existence level.  Lack of a work ethic and a desire to achieve has often been muted by government entitlement programs created by the liberal left who feel themselves to be more compassionate, caring, virtuous and even noble in their efforts to raise the quality of life of the poor and down trodden.  Liberals cannot see the fact that they have become the enablers of personal mediocrity and subservience to a system of second class citizenship and servitude dependent upon government, in whole or in part, for their life long existence.  From a political perspective the minimum wage is a liberal egalitarian effort at "redistributive justice".  What liberals cannot achieve in the market place, through supply and demand for labor, they endeavor to change through government fiat.

The GOP primary process and why Cruz could become the GOP nominee.

By Rob Janicki

99.9% of people voting in the GOP primaries this year have absolutely no idea how the process is  set up by the GOP and it definitely is set up by each state GOP, with each making up its own rules. 

Let's make this clear at the outset.  Primaries are NOT direct democratic elections for the candidate of the voter's choice.  

The voters are electing delegate electors, who, by state GOP rules for each state, must vote for the winning candidate or some such proportional candidate for one or more votes on the convention floor.  This depends upon each state's party rules.  Candidates who have dropped out can NOT simply direct those delegates to vote for anyone else.  These candidates that have dropped out can lobby these same delegates for a candidate that they like, but that is the extent of it.  These delegates must vote for their designated candidate UNTIL their state party rules free them of such constraints.   

After each state GOP rule has been met, these electors are then free to vote their consciences for whoever they choose.  

These delegate electors are party players and activists, who have operated in their Republican Party apparatus at the local, county or state level.  They are what you would call "establishment" folks and most are likely to support the candidate that the GOP leadership promotes and suggests would be in the best interest of the entire Republican Party.  The delegate electors that each state sends to the convention are essentially party insiders.  Trump may believe he has changed how Republican Party politics are run at the national level, but he has tried to do that from the outside, when it's still the insiders who can and will determine the nominee for the Republican Party.

What this translates to is simple.  Should Donald Trump not win the magic 1237 delegates necessary to win the nomination before the convention, the convention will come down to these delegates voting their conscience, not the choice of voters across the country and not withstanding Trump's contention that he has a plurality and fairness should dictate that he be the nominee.  It doesn't work that way and it won't work for Trump.

These delegates will vote for the candidate they, and the RNC, feel is the most electable and NOT the candidate that has the plurality of votes among the candidates.  Sorry Donald.  It's not about fairness and it certainly isn't about having a simple plurality, which is essentially meaningless.  

What does this portend for Donald Trump?  Trump will lose on the second or third ballot, depending upon how many delegates are committed by their state rules, to voting for their designated candidate after each ballot.  As more delegates are freed to vote their consciences, or that of the RNC, Cruz will most likely increase in delegate votes with each succeeding floor vote, since the RNC seems to have reluctantly embraced Cruz among the three candidates.

It's then that all Hell will break loose.  Trump supporters will cry foul.  They will claim that they have been robbed by the RNC, but the results will be due to the rather arcane party rules that everyone knew about, or should have known about going into the campaign.  That may be the difference between Ted Cruz, an elected politician with electoral experience and Donald Trump, an amateur playing at being a politician.

Will Trump try to hastily form a third party effort?  Not likely, since time and state rules weigh heavily against this, plus the cost would be exorbitant and there wouldn't be enough time to raise money for the effort and Trump simply won't self fund what he knows would be a losing result.

So, that leaves the question of what Trump's cult followers will do.  Will they stay home and refuse to vote for the GOP candidate, spitefully vote for the Democrat candidate or write in a candidate?  The winning GOP candidate shouldn't depend upon the Trump cult vote.  It simply won't be there.  These cultists will rather burn down the GOP than vote for the GOP candidate as evidenced by their mob like behaviors during the primaries to date.